The Birthday

the child is deader than my mouth
when I was unsafe and stunned.
I fill her room with glasses of wine
though it's empty, she'd want it pink.
sometimes I rest a trembling hand
on the outside wall of your place
it is still, though I am an earthquake
nothing has been settled only removed
purged, my love, your mother is sick,
selfish and with lungs coated in rust,
pipes echoing, always, with your cries.

She is as much a ghost as you are
though I can only imagine what you'd be,
I do spot your mother at night in the mirror.
She'd love to blame Death and forgive her hands
or force the belief that you weren't real
But my baby isn't here, I made her gone,
the silhouette of a mother burned as well.

hello, hello, tell me you'll come back
when my voice isn't red, raw, and bleeding
from shrieking into my hand, pinching
the wall of flesh above my womb
trying to feel and pull out the childless cradle
my baby, the corner is without you
you were so light, unknowingly stuffed with poison

your father didn't understand the lack of weight
or the tread on my spirit, the cravings
simplicity is beautiful and the complexity of you
was, without shoes, more than we could bear
I feel you saw too much, the ongoing war
the internal struggle of a crackling bond.
My precious one, forgive the fear that outgrew you,
the drinking, the animal rush in a state of confusion.

I did not know you and I never do.
I only leak out a little more, the
milk, and all I think has been tainted,
where there was once, a while ago,
a darkened door frame of bright red pain.

She is not a mother who rests here now,
I glimpse her as I do you, in passing,
perhaps someday, you and she will forgive,
and remember, part of me died that day too
And always, when I put flowers in her hair.